The Jets' record fell to 3-7 on Sunday following their 31-6 loss to the Cardinals in Week 10. The defeat made an already foggy path to the postseason a bit more difficult to see with seven games left in the regular season.
The players and coaches, however, believe there is still plenty left to play for.
"As a man, you got to find the good within all the bad," LB Jamien Sherwood said. "For myself, it's going to be about still being the leader, still trying to bring positivity to everybody that's in the room, everybody in the building.
"Nobody is giving us a chance to win all these seven games, but as long as you have the mindset to go out there and do your best and try to turn things around, again, you never know what could happen."
Despite snapping a five-game losing skid with a victory against the Texans on Oct. 31, the Jets have lost six of their last seven games. They are in a tie with the New England Patriots for second in the AFC East, each five games back of the division-leading Bills. The Jets will host the Colts on Sunday at MetLife Stadium before their bye week.
"You demonstrate your love for the man next to you by the way you finish, by the way you face adversity in these types of times," Sherwood said. "Nobody would assume or thought that the season would have gone this way when we started this season. So that's very upsetting. But again, the way you show your love for the man beside of you, the way you show your love for football, is just to finish strong."
TE Tyler Conklin added: "There's a lot of pride and a lot of talented players still in this room. So, we're going to go out there and do the best we can."
Tackling Issues
The Jets' defense missed 20 tackles in the Week 10 loss to the Cardinals on Sunday, tied for the most by any team in a game this season, according to Next Gen Stats. The Cardinals, known as hard-nosed, run-first team, rushed for 147 yards and 3 touchdowns.
"From a defensive standpoint, I would say especially in the first half, we just weren't executing the fundamentals," Sherwood said. "Tackling, tracking, execution, communicating amongst each other, we weren't doing that and that's what it's going to come down to at the end of the day, the basic details of football."
After the game, the players and the coaches shared the blame for the uncharacteristic number of miscues and vowed to correct the issues. Next up for the Jets in Week 11 is a bout with the Colts, another run-first squad who feature All-Pro tailback Jonathon Taylor (616 rushing yards, 4.9 YPC).
"Effort is absolutely a part of tackling," Ulbrich said. "Getting population of the football. It's a shared responsibility. It's all of us. There's finding ways to drill it and keep improving as a tackler. And then there's responsibility of the player to get it done. We share the responsibility."
He added: "An egregious, criminal amount of missed tackles, not good enough."
Jamien Sherwood said: "Yesterday's game is behind us now, so it's about going forward and trying to improve everything that we weren't good at yesterday."
Injury Updates
Jets starting left tackle Tyron Smith left Sunday's game with a neck injury. The 14-year veteran and eight-time Pro Bowler left the game late in the first half and was replaced by rookie T Olu Fashanu, who was playing LT for the first time in his professional career. The team remained in Arizona over night following the game, which is where Smith began to get treatment.
"[Smith] is going to get some imaging this morning [Monday] so we can get a better idea of what we're dealing with," Jeff Ulbrich said. "They will get a closer look at him with him also being in concussion protocol."
